The Corridor Journal of Strategic Alliances Silicon Island(c) | Page 8
From
The Dean Ph.D.
Yacov Shamash,
I want to thank The Corridor for not only pointing up the continuing
economic leadership of the IT sector, but also showcasing the
role of Long Islanders in creating the new technologies that will
create its future generations. Its pervasiveness tends to mask
its importance. These data points are valuable reminders of its
significance in our national economy:
IT Drives Productivity and GDP Growth. Over the last two decades, IT has made the U.S. economy
over $2 trillion larger in annual GDP; it accounted for 75% of U.S. productivity growth from 1995 to 2002
and 44% from 2000 to 2006.
IT Provides a Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy. As of 2010, U.S. firms were the world’s
largest producers of IT goods and services. In 2011, IT products comprised a third of U.S. advanced
technology product exports.
IT Helps Build High-Growth Companies and New Sectors. In Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500
Ranking, two-thirds of the 500 fastest growing U.S high-technology firms were in IT. The mobile app
sector generated almost $20 billion in revenue in 2011, and in 2012 there were almost half a million U.S.
jobs related to mobile apps, up from zero in 2007.
IT Drives Innovation. No major sector of the U.S. economy invests more in R&D than the computer and
electronic products industry; it invests 10.1% of sales in R&D, more than three times the U.S. average.
CEWIT was created because these critical economic
impacts don’t come about by accident. They result from
visionary leadership, significant tangible support and
ongoing collaboration among academia, government
and the private sector. Each of these three partners
plays a key role that is unique to its capacities and not
readily achievable by either of the others. In the case of
CEWIT:
The State of New York built a $50 million state-of-theart facility, with more than 40 new and highly diverse
laboratories, in order to house and foster leading edge
IT research and academic-industrial collaboration.
Stony Brook University used new SUNYwide res